


Musings on the Fitness of the Universe to Play Matchmaker

by jujubiest



Series: Destiny [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Normal Life, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Castiel is a hopeless romantic who believes in true love and destiny, Castiel's POV, Castiel's parents mentioned but never named, John Winchester Mentioned - Freeform, M/M, Mary Winchester mentioned - Freeform, Nobody bats an eye at same-gender soulmates or platonic soulmates, Soulmate-Identifying Timers, The Winchester family is happy and healthy and loving, anna milton mentioned - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-20
Updated: 2017-06-20
Packaged: 2018-11-16 17:32:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11257596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jujubiest/pseuds/jujubiest
Summary: Castiel has been imagining what meeting his soulmate would be like since he was old enough to understand what the numbers counting down on his wrist were all about. But what do you do when your soulmate wants nothing to do with the entire concept?





	Musings on the Fitness of the Universe to Play Matchmaker

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Arvi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arvi/gifts).



> I wrote this in a single day, un-beta'd except for one read-through after I was finished with the initial draft, because someone asked for it and I got hit by inspiration lightning. So if there are mistakes or inconsistencies, apologies!

For as long as he could remember, Castiel had been a big believer in the idea of a well-ordered universe. Call it fate, destiny, kismet, whatever…what mattered was that it was there. He could feel it. There was a plan and a purpose to everything that happened, and somewhere in all those cogs and gears was the place he fit, right next to the person who would fit him better than anyone else.

He’d never had any reason to doubt that feeling. Not until the day his clock ran out.

* * *

He was sitting in his sixth-grade English class—the first year the teachers started splitting them up into different classes for each subject. Right up in front, the way he always was, and practically giving himself a cramp to keep from bouncing off the walls with excitement.

Because today was the day. He was going to meet his soulmate.

He’d known it was coming since he was old enough to have the numbers explained to him, but only in the last two years or so had he really started to understand what it _meant_. And only since the start of summer had his heart begun to beat a little faster whenever he looked at the numbers on his wrist.

He was going to have a _soulmate._ Someone who would know him better than anyone else and be beside him for the rest of his life—maybe _forever._ Some people—religious people, usually, or people with spiritual leanings—believed that soulmates stayed together even in the afterlife.

He’d spent the last weeks leading up to the first day of school alternating between checking his wrist obsessively and floating through the late-summer heat in a daze of giddy daydreams. Because ever since he’d understood what the numbers meant, he’d been looking forward to the day his clock ran out and thanking whatever might be listening that his was so short. After all, the only thing better than having a soulmate had to be getting to actually _grow up_ with your soulmate, right? There would be no loneliness, no floundering uncertainty as he struggled to figure out where he fit in. Because the most important part of the equation would be figured out right from the start.

So perhaps “excited” was a bit of an understatement.

Castiel resisted the urge to check his wrist one last time. He already knew what it said; he’d been counting down in his head since he woke up that morning, all through the bus ride to school and his first class. _Any second now…any second…_

The teacher handed him a stack of papers to pass to the row behind him. He took one, took a deep breath, smiled a smile he hoped looked more or less normal and not as overexcited as he was feeling, and turned around…just as the count he was keeping up in his head hit zero.

The first thing his eyes registered were the freckles, a light nutmeg-brown dusting of them across the boy’s still-sunburned nose and cheeks. And above that, a pair of eyes that were too pretty a color to just be called “green.”

It took a moment for the boy’s expression to filter through Castiel’s hungry cataloging of his features. When it did, Castiel felt his excitement falter for the first time in…well, ever.

His soulmate was _glaring_ at him. Not just with his face…with his _whole body._ He was sitting as far back in his chair as he could get, shoulders rigid and brow drawn down, jaw clenched so hard it had to hurt and hands in white-knuckled fists on top of his desk.

Castiel felt his smile wobble and fall away as a sick feeling swept through him. He didn’t understand.

He wasn’t sure what his face was doing—he couldn’t feel it, couldn’t feel anything past the horrified “what ifs” he’d never considered before now running through his mind— _What if he doesn’t like boys? What if he thinks I_ smell _!?_ But whatever the boy saw made his fists unclench and his shoulders relax, just a tiny bit. His stormy expression opened up into something a little bit…apologetic?

“Hi,” he offered quietly, taking the stack of papers from Castiel’s numb fingers and passing them behind him without bothering to look. “My name’s Dean.”

“Castiel,” Castiel blurted, feeling his face turn red. “Sorry,” he said quickly, seeing the look of surprise on the boy’s— _Dean’s—_ face. “My parents are total weirdos.”

 _Dean_ laughed, and Castiel felt the knot in his stomach loosen. Maybe that glare'd had nothing to do with him. Maybe this would work out just exactly the way he’d dreamed after all.

* * *

Being Dean Winchester’s soulmate was nothing like anything Castiel had dreamed, or hoped for, or wanted.

But maybe he didn’t know himself that well…because he wouldn’t have traded Dean for the most adoring, enthusiastic soulmate in the world.

Not that he didn’t sometimes wish things were different between them, much later on. But by the end of that first day Castiel had decided the universe knew _exactly_ what it was doing.

Because Dean was _fun,_ and funny, and smart, and they just _got_ each other. He got Castiel’s jokes, always, no matter how deadpan the delivery. Where other people would side-eye him warily, trying to figure out whether or not he was serious, Dean would be laughing so hard he could barely breathe. And when Castiel struggled to find a way to voice his thoughts, Dean would open up his mouth and say what Castiel was thinking in the simplest, most cut-to-the-heart-of-it way imaginable.

He spent most of his free time at Dean’s house, to the point that Dean’s parents felt like a second mom and dad, and Dean’s little brother, Sammy, felt like his little brother, too. He loved all of the Winchesters, and they seemed to like him.

Not that it was always easy. They argued sometimes. But those were little fights that never lasted more than a couple of hours. They were never about anything _really_ important. The one really important thing they would have disagreed upon was never even a topic of conversation.

Castiel knew how Dean felt about soulmates, and destiny. He knew Dean hated the very idea of them. Not that Dean had ever said it in those exact words, of course. He wouldn’t, not to Cas—Dean’s name for Castiel almost since the first day they’d met, and one he found that he liked.

But he said other things sometimes, dropped hints here and there—however intentionally or unintentionally, it didn’t matter. Castiel put it together pretty quickly: Dean didn’t want a soulmate, resented the very idea of them. And while he might have decided to be Castiel’s friend in spite of their soulmate connection, he had no intention of letting them ever become more.

That hurt, at first. More than Castiel ever let on to anyone, though he suspected his mother knew. A part of him wanted to believe that Dean would change his mind someday. But the bigger part of him—the part that was truly Dean’s soulmate no matter how much Dean might refuse to acknowledge it—knew Dean better than that. He knew how stubborn Dean could be, and more importantly how abhorrent Dean found the whole concept.

And he knew, deep down, that he would never be happy with anything that would make Dean unhappy.

So he decided that it didn’t matter. He _insisted_ to himself that it didn’t. Why should it? He still had everything he could want, right? He had a best friend who knew him better than anyone else. He was understood. He was never alone if he didn’t want to be. He didn’t need _romance._ Not at twelve certainly, not at fourteen, fifteen, sixteen. Maybe he didn’t need it at all.

Some people, he knew, did have platonic soulmates. It wasn’t unheard of, or frowned upon, or forbidden or anything. He could have Dean by his side for his whole life, and never have to define it beyond the fact that they were each other’s best friends.

Even if, sometimes, Dean hit him with that up-to-something smile and Cas felt his heart trip over a couple of beats.

Even if when Dean casually wrapped an arm around his shoulders, it was all Cas could do not to let himself lean into that touch.

It didn’t matter. He wasn’t waiting for anything. He had everything he needed already.

He was happy.

* * *

He was happy right up to the moment when Dean changed everything.

It was the night before their high school graduation, and the air was thick with the balmy warmth of an early summer. Cas and Dean had taken refuge from the stifling indoors to sprawl in the grass outside and enjoy the light breeze that was trying, and failing, to lift the listless, drooping leaves of the white poplar in the Winchesters’ yard.

They were lying on their backs with their feet stuck out in opposite directions, nearly cheek-to-cheek but for the shoulders’ width of space between them in the too-tall grass. Dean had grabbed them each a soda before racing him outside, of course shaking up the drinks in the process so that they both got a face full of sticky spray when they tried to open them and had to rinse off with the water hose before collapsing in their current position.

That had been a while ago, though, when the sun was still barely peeking over the tops of the nearby trees. Now it was full-dark, the sky an inky midnight blue full of stars. Their clothes and hair were drying slowly, and their sodas were forgotten in slack hands as they stared upward. Dean was uncharacteristically silent, and in lieu of letting his thoughts about tomorrow—graduation, growing up, _change—_ get too loud, Castiel was filling the quiet with the mumbled names of constellations he remembered from similar nights spent on the roof of the garage with his dad.

He felt Dean turn his head, felt that green gaze so heavy on his skin that he faltered in his recitation.

“What’re you grinning at?” He asked without having to look over. He could feel the grin, too, like the sun on his face.

“A horse’s ass,” Dean shot back, and Cas could hear the grin get bigger. He laughed in spite of himself, shaking his head without turning.

“You’re ridiculous,” he said, already searching out the next constellation in the list of them that he remembered should be visible in the Northern Hemisphere at that time of year.

“I know,” Dean said, and something in his voice made Cas stop and pay attention.

“You’re my best friend, Cas,” he said after a moment. “You know that, right?”

He did know that. Did Dean think he didn’t? He turned, face screwed up in confusion.

“Of course I know that,” he said, as though it should be obvious. “Why, are you just figuring this out now?”

Dean rolled his eyes, looking peeved.

“C’mon man, don’t be a jackass. You know this stuff’s not easy for me.”

Cas sighed and rolled over, both to be closer to Dean and make it easier to carry on whatever conversation they were about to have. His heart was in his throat, suddenly, for no reason he could really name. When Dean leaned into him, it started beating like a jackhammer.

Cas had never been waiting for Dean to be ready to talk about it. He had never expected him to at all. Hell, he’d stopped wishing years ago, stopped hoping...stopped needing, really. He was good. _They_ were good. The occasional case of sweaty palms when Dean looked at him a certain way or smiled a certain smile notwithstanding, he’d truly believed he didn’t care anymore about ever having anything else but what they already had.

But apparently, he was a bald-faced liar even to _himself,_ because suddenly he couldn't stop the words from pouring out of his mouth.

“I’ve never said anything…because I knew you didn’t believe in it, or want to…I don’t know. But…that doesn’t meant I—“

He’d been watching Dean’s eyebrows climb a little higher with each syllable that fell from his mouth, and now his words decided to run out on a cliffhanger. He dropped his eyes to the grass, studying the blades as though they were the most interesting things he’d ever seen and willing the warmth he could feel heating his face to subside…or at least hoping it was too dark for Dean to see it and know what it meant.

“Cas,” Dean said softly. Then, when Castiel didn’t respond, more insistently: “Hey, look at me.”

Castiel forced himself to look up, but he couldn’t quite meet Dean’s eyes. He felt wretched, and he didn’t want to see betrayal there, didn’t want Dean to think he’d just been waiting around for a change of heart, or that he’d been…trying to _wear him down,_ or something. He wasn’t that guy. But for the first time, he didn’t know how to say what he needed to say to Dean.

“It’s not—“ he tried, and failed. Then: “I don’t…I mean, we—“

And then Dean did what Dean always did so well, and finished his sentence.

Just not in a way Castiel would have ever imagined.

That initial press of lips was so unexpected that he didn’t have the capacity to feel anything at first but shock. But that faded quickly, leaving behind a too-warm night and a sky full of stars and _Dean,_ Dean closer than Cas had ever dared to wish for.

Maybe an older, wiser Castiel would have been able to resist falling over that precipice. But at eighteen, Cas was neither old nor very wise, and he had no guards or limits when it came to Dean except the ones Dean set himself.

He fell.

The noise he made into Dean’s mouth was embarrassing, but he didn’t have time to care when Dean’s fingers were grasping at the collar of his shirt, pulling Castiel in and down over him, when his mouth was moving over Castiel’s in ways that made him feel like he was going up in flames in the best way possible. He grasped at Dean’s shoulders in a vain attempt to ground himself, but when Dean’s hands finally let go of his shirt and wandered down his arms and around to his back, somehow that turned into Castiel’s fingers burrowing themselves into Dean’s hair instead, and there was no grounding to be had, nothing solid to stand on as long as Dean was touching him like this, kissing him like this.

 It lasted forever and not long enough, and when they came up for air Cas just laid there a moment, catching his breath and feeling the blissful haze slowly fading along with the tingling in every place Dean had touched.

When it was gone it left a cold uncertainty that had Cas suppressing a shiver despite the hot night air.

For seven years, Dean Winchester had been a constant in his life. Now, suddenly, he was a giant question mark. And the longer Castiel waited for him to speak, the more afraid he was of what Dean would say when he did.

When he finally spoke, his words sent Castiel’s stomach plummeting to somewhere near the soles of his shoes.

“I’ve fought this all my life.” It was so quiet he barely heard it. Dean wasn’t looking at him, and he was almost glad. He didn’t think he could take the feeling of those eyes on him when Dean said what came next.

“I’m sorry,” he choked out. “I’m sorry, Cas. I just….I _can’t._ ”

Castiel didn’t know what to feel, or what to say. So he said the thing he wanted to be true, even though he knew it wasn’t, not really.

“It’s okay, Dean.”

Dean didn’t say anything else. He didn’t look up from where his shoes disappeared into the grass. He knew Castiel too well to believe him.

Castiel wondered, with a fear so strong he thought he might be sick from it, whether this was it, then. Could they go back to being themselves tomorrow? Just Dean and Cas, best of friends? Would Dean be able to look at him if he showed up at his front door tomorrow with a smile and a joke on his tongue, like nothing had happened?

Could he even _manage_ that?

No…he didn’t think he could. He didn’t know how to look at Dean now without remembering what that warm, freckled skin felt like under his hands. He didn’t know how to listen to him speak without recalling the taste of his breath and the shape of his lips pressed against Castiel’s own.

Hell, he could barely sit here _not_ looking at Dean or listening to him speak without remembering how, above all else, it had felt so _right._

How could it feel so right to him when it clearly felt so wrong to Dean?

That question, shouted loud in his mind, had Castiel finally getting up to leave. He walked fast, trying not to break into a run, trying not to think of it as _fleeing._ He didn’t have any answers, and Dean clearly didn’t have anything else to say.

Not even, as it turned out later, good-bye.

* * *

It happened sometimes.

That didn’t make it any easier to bear when it happened to him.

He didn’t hate Dean for walking away. He couldn’t. He understood, as he’d always understood, how fundamentally opposed to the idea of soulmates Dean had always been. And he never would have asked him to subject himself to something that made him so uncomfortable and unhappy. But until Dean walked away from Kansas and Castiel without so much as a good-bye note, Castiel didn’t fully understand _why_ Dean was so opposed.

Afterwards, he understood it perfectly.

It’s a heavy thing, to put your hopes and happiness on someone else, to give them the power to hurt you so deeply. A heavy risk for you, a heavy burden for them. And if they fail, or leave, or die? The numbers said it all with their little line of zeroes. No do-overs.

No skin off Castiel’s back, though, or so he told himself. He no longer believed in destiny, or soulmates. After all, how could the universe know what it was doing with the numbers, if it paired Castiel with someone who didn’t even want them?

He took to wearing a watch in college, with a wide leather band that covered the zeroes completely. He knew it marked him as odd; most people never covered their numbers. But it was easier to endure the raised eyebrows and questioning looks of his professors and classmates than it was to see those zeroes staring back at him, reminding him.

He contemplated getting a tattoo to cover them completely, but wasn’t sure that the tattoo wouldn’t just remind him as well.

Years later, he was glad he hadn’t.

* * *

It had been twenty years since that night under the stars. At least ten since Castiel had finally moved away from their hometown for good. Seven since he’d last seen Dean, by chance at someone’s birthday that just happened to fall during the two weeks he always spent at home during December.

When he’d heard Dean was going to be at this gathering, he almost didn’t show.

But then his stubborn streak kicked in, and Castiel decided that Dean Winchester was not going to keep him from seeing his old friends or enjoying his visit home. _After all_ , he thought, _what’s the worst he can do to me_ _now?_

As it turned out, the worst he could do was smile the way he always had, with those eyes in that face full of nearly-faded freckles that twenty years had otherwise done surprisingly little to change.

The worst he could do was laugh until his eyes were streaming at one of Castiel’s jokes that no one else seemed to get. The worst he could do was start up a story with “hey Cas, you remember that time…” and _yes,_ of course Castiel remembered that time, and all their times, in spite of all the time he’d spent trying to forget.

The worst he could do was watch Castiel laughing at something Anna Milton said from across the table, with a smile on his face that could have meant anything until he caught Castiel’s eye and jerked his head toward the door.

Castiel’s laugh died in his throat, but there was enough noise around him that no one seemed to notice. He looked squarely at Dean for a longer moment than he had yet allowed himself, searching for the meaning behind that smile and this sudden invitation to step away from the group.

He wasn’t quite finished debating with himself when he nodded and stood up, excusing himself to those in his immediate proximity before following Dean toward the front door of the restaurant and out into the chilly December air.

He didn’t know what Dean wanted to talk about, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to know. But a nagging little voice said he had to find out, or he would drive himself mad wondering about it later. Hell, he was already losing it a little just waiting for Dean to speak.

Luckily, Dean had lost his childhood habit of beating around the bush when there was something he wanted to say.

“I’m an idiot,” he began, and Castiel forced himself to remain impassive despite the nervous little flutter in his stomach.

“I won’t debate you on that, but why exactly?”

Dean grinned, unfazed by the implied insult.

“When we were kids, before I met you even, I asked Sammy how anyone could know they really loved their soulmate.”

He paused, as though waiting for Castiel’s reaction. The problem was that Castiel didn’t know _how_ to react. He just stared at Dean, trying to let his words sink in and failing.

Eventually, Dean cleared his throat and went on.

“Uh…so I guess I had the idea that people made the whole soulmate thing work just because they wanted it to so badly, not because they were actually compatible, or good for each other, or…or _happy._ I didn’t understand how anybody could be happy without knowing that what they felt was real.”

Castiel opened his mouth to say something—he wasn’t sure what—but Dean kept going without giving him an opening, hands shoved in his pockets and face tilted up to the sky a little. He looked like he was searching for his words in the dark, heavy snow-clouds overhead.

“But then I realized...I’ve fought this my _whole life_.” Castiel flinched, the words too near an echo of what Dean said to him that last summer night, so many years ago. But unlike that night, Dean kept talking before the new hurt could settle in beside the old and grow deep roots.

“I _didn’t_ want it to work. I didn’t want it _at all._ And in the end…” He dropped his gaze from the clouds to Castiel, that same little smile from before on his face again and something in his eyes that Castiel had only ever seen once. He shrugged.

“It didn’t matter,” he said softly. “I still wanted _you._ Still do, if you’ll have me.”

Castiel blinked once, twice. He opened his mouth, then closed it. He tried to understand what Dean was saying, and then tried not to because it was terrifying.

 _Do you really think it’s that easy?!_ He wanted to shout. _That you can just disappear for two decades and then walk back in like_ nothing happened?!

He felt dizzy. Angry. Sick. Elated. There were so many questions clamoring for attention in his mind that he didn’t even know where he should begin.

Could he take another chance on Dean Winchester? Could he survive losing him again if he did? Was it worth it to even try? Could he ever really trust that Dean was in it as deep as he was, that he wouldn’t live to regret it if he tried to pick up where they left off when they were just dumb kids?

Did he really even _know_ Dean anymore?

But the last question was a stupid one, and he knew it. Maybe they were all stupid questions, or excuses, or just fear talking. Or maybe they were perfectly sound things to ask, under the circumstances. He really didn’t know.

He just knew that when he looked at Dean, he wanted to find out.

So maybe the universe knew what it was doing after all.


End file.
